


The War Was in Color

by SkyEverett



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Gen, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3492665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyEverett/pseuds/SkyEverett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is going to be based off of the family that existed during Chibitalia: Austria and Hungary are like mother and father figures to HRE and Italy.  Young Ludwig Beilschmidt found some old war pictures in his attic in the middle of the night and has a revelation about war and what it's really about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The War Was in Color

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, Ludwig and Feliciano were adopted by Elizabeta and Roderich in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Ludwig’s only flesh-and-blood relative was his grandfather, Gilbert, who had only held and seen him once before he went off to war. Enjoy the story!

Ludwig couldn’t sleep.  That was a problem of his, and he didn’t really know what to do when he couldn’t.  He’d usually go and wake up Miss Elizabeta, had she’d get him a warm cup of milk and send him to bed straightaway.  But today he felt like exploring the attic.  Apparently there were a lot of things up there from when his older grandfather was at war.  Ludwig had only met his grandfather once, and that was when he was less than a year old.  Ludwig tended to forget what happened when he was  _that_  young.    
  
Very quietly, hoping not to wake his younger brother, he opened the door to the attic and climbed up the ladder that came down with it.  After he slowly closed the door behind him, he began to open the first box.  
  
_I see you've found a box of my things  
Infantries, tanks and smoldering airplane wings.  
These old pictures are cool, tell me some stories  
Was it like the old war movies?  
Sit down, son, let me fill you in_  
  
Ludwig first pulled out a black-and-white drawing of his family.  Miss Elizabeta was holding a just-born Feliciano, and Austria was holding a younger Ludwig.  Behind them, an older man with white hair grinned and held up two fingers in a victory salute.  The drawing was by Miss Elizabeta, and Ludwig wondered why she kept it up here; it was really good.    
  
_Where to begin? Let's start with the end  
This black and white photo don't capture the skin  
From the flash of a gun to a soldier who's done  
Trust me grandson, the war was in color _  
  
Ludwig pulled out some other photos and stared at them.  They were all of the same man from the drawing, but he was wearing an army uniform and grinning under his helmet for the camera.   _My grandfather must have been a really good-natured man,_  thought Ludwig.   _I’ll bet he was a great soldier._  
  
_From shipyard to sea, from factory to sky  
From rivet to rifle, from boot camp to battle cry  
I wore the mask up high on a daylight run  
That held my face in its clammy hand  
Crawled over coconut logs and corpses in the coral sand_  
  
The next picture, however, made Ludwig’s mouth turn down.  It was a picture of the man again, but one of his eyes was black and swollen behind a gas mask.  He was leaning against a boulder, holding a gun to his chest.  His shoulders were tense and his eyes were wide with fear.  A few other battle plans and model airplanes were in that box, but Ludwig had already set them aside for something else.  Ludwig drew out pictures of battlefields, bunkers, even one of a hospital, but Ludwig pushed that one away, unwilling to see the horrible war wounds after a glance.  
  
_Where to begin? Let's start with the end  
This black and white photo don't capture the skin  
From the shock of a shell or the memory of smell  
If red is for hell, the war was in color_  
  
The next picture was probably the one that made Ludwig’s blood run cold, but not at first.  It was a picture taken on a ship.  Three soldiers were standing there, one of which was a man whose face was lined with worry and hidden emotion.  Ludwig recognized his grandfather immediately.  The other two were upending a bag and pouring its contents into the ocean.  It looked like the contents were just gigantic bundles of cloth, but a closer look and Ludwig saw a hand peeking out between the strips of cloth.    
  
Ludwig put the picture back, but it was too late; the image was plastered and vivid in his mind.  
  
_I held the canvas bag over the railing  
The dead released, with the ship still sailing  
Out of our hands and into the swallowing sea  
I felt the crossfire stitching up soldiers  
Into a blanket of dead, and as the night grows colder  
In a window back home, a blue star is traded for gold  
  
Where to begin? Let's start with the end  
This black and white photo don't capture the skin  
When metal is churned and bodies are burned  
Victory earned, the war was in color_  
  
Ludwig almost went back down to his bedroom, but he didn’t want to have nightmares, so he stayed there, huddled in the dim light of the attic, scared.  After a few minutes, though, curiosity got the better of him.  In a very small box, there was a picture of a young man is his early twenties.  His hair was white even at that age, and he was grinning and holding his hand out in a victory salute.  On the back of the picture, written in Miss Elizabeta’s curly handwriting:  _Gilbert Beilschmidt, loved friend, died 1944._   A gold star was in that box too, as well as an obituary.  But Ludwig only had eyes for the man in the photograph.  
  
“Gilbert,” whispered Ludwig.   _“Großvater Gilbert…”_   He only got to see him once, but he had died in the war?  That wasn’t fair!    
  
_“Ich wünschte, ich könnte Ihnen noch einmal gesehen haben...”_   Ludwig finally closed eyes that were beginning to fill with tears and fell asleep.  
  


* * *

  
  
Gilbert watched silently from the corner of the room as Ludwig slowly fell into the clutches of sleep and exhaustion.  Hopefully the little boy was sleeping peacefully, Gilbert’s old pictures not scary enough to penetrate his sleeping mind.    
  
_Now I lay in my grave at age 21  
Long before you were born, before I bore a son  
What good did it do?  Well, hopefully for you  
A world without war…a life full of color_  
  
Gilbert had only held the little guy once in his life, and he lived a good life as a soldier, killed in action and resting in peace, but his one regret was that he never got to spend enough time with his grandson.  His father had died and in Gilbert’s will, he wanted Ludwig to be taken in by Roderich and Elizabeta, two trustworthy friends of his.  His wish was granted, and he had spent most of the last seven years watching over his beloved grandson.   And Ludwig had finally found him again, through pictures of his life as a soldier.    
  
With a content smile, Gilbert walked towards the door.  Ludwig didn’t need him watching anymore, he was old enough to start thinking for himself.  Gilbert left his descendant one last gift and faded into the air.  
  
_Where to begin? Let's start with the end  
This black and white photo never captured my skin  
Once it was torn from an enemy thorn  
Straight through the core, the war was in color_  
  
When Roderich and Elizabeta found Ludwig the next day, he was curled in a ball, asleep, the tears from earlier that morning dried on his face.  Pictures of Gilbert’s life were strewn around him, and a war-beaten Iron Cross necklace rested in his hand.  
  
_Where to begin? Let's start with the end_  
      _This black and white photo don't capture the skin_  
 _From the flash of a gun to a soldier who's done_  
 _Trust me grandson, the war was in color_  
 __  
“Trust me, grandson . . . the war was in color . . .”


End file.
